


the tower ghost

by BlackJacketsandPens



Series: emily kaldwin and the ghost of the tower [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, friendship fluff, he's doomed, new brotp ngl, small princess bonds with 4000 year old void god, they're too cute together i hate this, void god did not expect any of this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 13:57:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9126775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackJacketsandPens/pseuds/BlackJacketsandPens
Summary: Being all alone in the tower above the Hound Pits is lonely, sometimes, and scary. Especially when you can't sleep, when you're waiting for the only person you still trust to come back, and part of you is nursing the fear he might not.Luckily for Emily Kaldwin, she's not alone. Not entirely. Her tower is haunted, after all.(Entirely self-indulgent young Emily and Outsider friendship fluff. May be a series if this one ends up liked.)





	

Emily Kaldwin was _not_ scared. Not even a little. For the fifth time, though, she wiggled out of bed and smoothed down the too-large white buttoned shirt the Admiral had lent her to sleep in, before walking up to the tower window. The pub below her was quiet, and there were no lights on. She thought that was strange -- pubs were usually all lit up at night, weren’t they? People drinking, dancing, singing, that sort of thing. But then again, this pub was special. Inside it were people doing their best to make things right.

Make it right...it was still difficult to think about everything that had happened. It _hurt_. She hugged herself tight, trying her best not to sniffle. She missed her mother so much it hurt, like an empty stomach only it was her heart instead. She’d never seen so much blood anywhere, but then it was all over, and it was Mommy’s, and someone was holding onto her tightly -- and she was being carried away, but she saw someone punch Corvo, brave Corvo, and he fell to the ground. She didn’t know why they’d done that at the time. Corvo had tried to protect her mother like he always did. 

But then she’d been taken away to the Pendleton twins -- mother had never liked them, and she’d told them so, and one of them had slapped her -- and told by mean old Burrows that her Corvo, favorite person besides her mother, had been arrested for her mother’s murder. That was when she cried the first time. It hadn’t been fair or right at all! These terrible people had taken her mother away, and blamed the last person in the world that would ever hurt her for it. She knew Corvo would die before he’d hurt her mother. The thought of him sitting in scary old Coldridge made her so sad, especially because she knew -- even though she knew her mother didn’t want her to know -- that they hurt the prisoners a lot sometimes.

She’d sat in that back room at the Golden Cat for a long time, lonely and scared and angry wondering what was going to happen to her, what was going to happen to Corvo. And then she’d heard on the loudspeakers about a Masked Felon, and that the Empress’s murderer escaped, and that creepy Campbell was a heretic now...and she was happy. She felt bad about being happy, but that meant Corvo was free, right? And one of the people who hurt her mother was gone. 

She didn’t make the connection, though, until the door to her prison creaked open and a man in a mask stood there. She’d been scared a moment at his scary steel skull, at the dirty and torn blue coat, at the knife in his hand, but then he’d taken the mask off and it was _Corvo_. She almost cried again when she saw his face. He was pale, and his face was dirty, and he needed a shave, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in day, and he needed a haircut really bad, but it was Corvo. 

He’d taken her home, and then she’d heard the Pendletons were gone and she’d been happy. That same sort of sad-scared-happy, though, like she wasn’t sure she _should_ be. But she liked it here at the pub. Callista was nice and was teaching her things, and the old boatman was sweet, telling her stories. She liked the funny philosopher in glasses, too, when he spoke to her. The Admiral was a little scary, him and the Overseer and the younger Pendleton, but they were all helping Corvo, so they couldn’t be too bad.

But...she couldn’t sleep, still. Corvo had gone out again. She knew it because she’d seen the boatman take him away through the window hours ago at dusk. He’d gone out and put his mask on, and she was feeling that sad-scared-happy feeling again -- who was he going to make go away now? She knew he wasn’t killing them, because Corvo didn’t kill anyone, but he was making them go away. Punishing them for hurting her mother like when she’d get grounded for breaking things in Dunwall Tower or doing things without permission, only worse.

But she was also scared because...what if Corvo didn’t come back? She’d only have herself, then. Callista and the boatman and Mr. Joplin were nice, but she didn’t really trust the others. And the nice ones couldn’t protect her from scary men with swords. She didn’t want to be _alone_.

She couldn’t catch the sniffle she made this time where she stood at the window, watching the empty dock for the boatman’s skiff, and she nearly screamed when she heard someone call her name. 

She spun in her bare feet on the tower floor and stared with wide eyes at the room -- it was a little colder, somehow, and it smelled like when the wind blew in from ocean or the harbor. And there was someone sitting on her bed, someone she didn’t know.

He was young, maybe a little older than her, and he had short dark hair and really pale skin. He was dressed kind of like a sailor, in blue canvas pants and a brown leather jacket, with shiny sailor boots, and he didn’t make any dent in the lumpy mattress where he sat. And his eyes...they were black. Shiny and dark, like drops of ink, or when she made angry black scribbles on her drawings. Not like normal eyes, but from end to end, like there was no other color in the world.

“Hello, Emily,” he said, and smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile, but it wasn’t a mean one either, she decided. It was a smile like someone who didn’t know how, but kind of assumed that it was What You Did when saying hello, even if he didn’t know how to do it right.

“Hi,” she said, knowing Callista was asleep in the pub tonight and that she could talk as loud as she liked. “Are you a ghost? Lydia said this tower was haunted.”

The black-eyed ghost on her bed blinked, and then laughed. “You could say that,” he agreed. “I am a ghost, in a way. But I’m more than that. You can just think of me as a ghost, though, if you’d like. It makes things easier.”

“Okay,” Emily said with a shrug, wiping her watery eyes and going back to her bed to sit down next to the ghost. “So how come you came to say hello, mister ghost? I thought ghosts stayed invisible and rattled doors and cabinets and threw bottles and wrote scary things on walls. That’s what they do in books.”

The ghost laughed again, looking amused, but in an odd sort of way, like he hadn’t expected it. “You’re far braver than I expected, then, if that’s what you think ghosts do,” he said. “As for me, I think you’re very interesting, Emily, so I wanted to meet you.”

“Well, there’s not much that scares me anymore,” Emily admitted. “A lot of bad things happened, and I don’t know if I can be scared of stuff like the plague or ghosts. There’s worse things.” She kicked her legs absently. “Like losing Corvo.”

The ghost smiled. “Corvo will be alright, I think,” he said gently. “He’s interesting, too. I don’t think he’ll let the Void take him from you just yet.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Emily said with a smile back. “He’s special to me. I’ve known him for forever, did you know? As long as I can remember. He was my mother’s protector, but he protects me, too. He would play with me, and take me fishing, and show me all sorts of cool things he knew. He let me ride on his shoulders...he’s so tall! I thought I could see all of Dunwall from up there. If I was scared, he’d come to my room and sing to me when mother was busy.” Her voice broke, and she hunched over, pulling her legs to her chest. “He likes strong coffee, and spicy food I can’t eat because it burns my mouth, and he knows how to dance really well and doesn’t complain when I step on his feet, and he’s not afraid of rats or big bugs, and I heard once he smashed one of the Pendleton’s faces into their potatoes because he said something rude to my mother, a-and…” She felt tears on her face, warm and salty, and she buried her face in her knees. “I’m so scared,” she told the ghost. “Because if he goes away, then I’m all alone. And I can’t trust anyone anymore, because the people who killed Mother were people she trusted, a-and if Corvo goes away-- b-but I’m mad, too, because I can’t do anything to help him, and it was _my_ mother!”

She couldn’t believe she was saying all this to a ghost, but it was somehow...nice, to get it all in the air, let it go from where it had sat pressing against her ribs for days. “It was my mother, and I’m stuck up in this tower waiting for Corvo to come back and hoping he’ll be okay and-- and waiting to hear if that stupid jerk who killed Mother gets punished and we can go home, and I want to do something, but I _can’t--_ ”

She felt a cold hand on her back, not rubbing gentle circles like Corvo or her mother would, but just there -- she’s surprised she can feel the ghost, but that’s a fleeting thought before she turned to fling herself into his arms, crying into his cold, ghostly shoulder. He didn’t move -- he stiffened, actually, and she felt a little bad for surprising him when she’d finished crying and sat back, seeing the discomfort on his face.

“S-Sorry,” she apologized. “But I feel a little better now.”

The ghost lifted a shoulder. “I should have expected it,” he said carelessly, waving a hand. “Don’t apologize.” He paused, glancing around the empty room, and then back at her. “Would you...like me to stay until morning?” He offered hesitantly. “If you can’t sleep, I can keep you company. If you don’t mind talking to a ghost, that is.”

Emily just beamed at him. “I’d love that,” she said sincerely, standing to give him the best curtsey she could in her too-big shirt. “Thank you very much, mister ghost.”

“You’re very welcome, Princess Emily,” the ghost responded, standing to bow a little dramatically and making her laugh. 

\---------------------------

The first thing Emily decided to do with her new friend was what she always liked to do -- draw. She was glad that Callista had found things to give her, so she grabs a few pieces of rough paper and her colored pencils, sitting on the floor and offering the ghost one of the sheets. “If you can touch stuff, come draw with me,” she said earnestly. 

The ghost blinked at her, kneeling down to shift cross-legged on the floor as Emily sprawls on her stomach, grabbing blue and brown pencils. “I...well, alright,” he said easily after a moment. “What should I draw?”

“Whatever you want!” Emily said cheerily, glancing up at the ghost. “Something you like, someone you know...a place you’ve seen that you like...if you can remember what something looks like, you can draw it.”

The ghost smiled. “I see,” he said, and then shifted to lie on his own stomach -- something that struck Emily as somehow strange, and special, like she was the only one who’d ever get to see this -- and pick up the gray pencil.

The two worked in silence for a while, Emily glancing up every so often, before she stopped and put the black pencil down. “I finished, look,” she said, and the ghost glanced up, blinking in surprise when she showed him her drawing. It was him -- the ghost, as accurate as she could, complete with black scribbles for his eyes. He blinked and smiled, carefully taking it from her as she offered and folding it, slipping it into his jacket.

“Thank you,” he said, with the awkward hesitance of someone unused to the words. “It’s...nice.”

Emily beamed at him again. “You must be lonely,” she noted. “All by yourself up in this tower. I’m kind of glad I’m here, then, so you have someone to talk to for a little while.”

“It...it is lonely,” he admitted. “There’s usually no one but me, and even the people I speak to...only show up once in a while.” He glanced down at the paper he was drawing aimlessly on. “So yes, I suppose...it’s good that you’re here to talk to.”

Emily scooted up to her hands and knees and looked over, smiling in surprise when she got a look at what the ghost was drawing. “A whale!” She said. “You’re drawing a whale. Have you ever seen a live one before? I’ve only seen them in pictures or their bones, but Corvo said once that he saw them a lot in the harbor in Serkonos, and the sailors see them all the time out on the Ocean.”

“I’ve seen lots of whales,” the ghost said. “Baby whales, like you, and adult whales, like the ones people hunt for oil. And even the great leviathans, the ones that are bigger than any other whale, that live deep, deep down in the ocean.”

“Wow,” Emily said, eyes wide. “Tell me about them! Do you like whales? I think they’re pretty. I heard an audiograph of their voices once, that a sailor recorded for the Academy, and it was really sad. I thought they must be singing for the ones that got killed to make oil and food, like when the Abbey chimes bells for funerals.”

The ghost chuckled. “They do,” he said. “They sing to communicate with other. All sorts of things, not just sorrow. They sing when they’re happy, and angry, and just to talk like we are right now. It always sounds sad, though, I think. Whales are sad creatures.”

“Oooh…” Emily fell silent for a moment. “What about other things that live in the ocean. I only ever see them in books or on dinner tables, but I bet they’re even cooler in the water. Like redsharks and hagfish, and jellies and squids and octopuses and the deep watchers people make statues of, and the star-shaped ones, and the wiggly little, um--” She screwed her face up. “The ones on the rocks, that people saw when they went down in bathyspheres. Anemanemanies?”

The ghost let out a startled laugh. “Anemones,” he corrected. “Did you know there’s a certain type of fish that lives in the deep parts of the ocean that has a light on its head?” He told her. “It uses the light like a fisherman’s lure, waving it around so little fish swim close to it, and…” He grinned, clapping his hands together suddenly and making her jump. “Then it has its dinner.”

Emily giggled. “That’s amazing,” she said. “There are lots of strange things in the Ocean, aren’t there? And I heard there’s even stranger on Pandyssia. Mr. Sokolov went there a long time ago and wrote a book, and I read part of it once.” She looked out at the sky. “I kinda got the feeling that everything on Pandyssia can kill you just by looking at you funny, and I think that’s scary, but also really cool. If I couldn’t be an Empress anymore, I think I’d want to go explore Pandyssia.” She paused, and leaned over to the ghost conspiratorially. “Or a _pirate_.”

“A pirate?” The ghost asked, smiling crookedly. “Well, that’s a career change. Why a pirate?”

Emily grinned. “You get to do whatever you want, whenever you want to do it,” she explained. “And in the books, pirates get to run around having daring adventures, epic sword fights, and they find tons of sparkly treasure!” She grinned wider. “I would take Corvo and just...go. I’d be the captain and he’d be my first mate, and we’d go exploring all over the Ocean, past the edges of the map. We’d find animals and places no one’s ever seen, maybe see the edge of the world! And it would be fun.” She looked thoughtful. “Do you think if I took a piece of the tower with me, you could come too? You could tell us all about the sea animals.”

She looked up to see him staring oddly at her again, that same look like he wasn’t sure what to do with her, and she grinned. “And you wouldn’t be lonely,” she added.

“I…” He trailed off. “That might be nice,” he said finally, quietly, like he was admitting it to himself, too. “But how about we wait and see what tomorrow holds before we go rushing off to the great unknown, princess?”

Emily pouted. “Fine,” she muttered, though she was still smiling. She carefully collected all of the spare paper and pencils and returned them to her desk, turning to see the ghost offering her his drawing of the whale. “You gave me yours,” he said with a shrug.

“Thank you!” Emily said happily, reaching up to pin it next to her drawings of her mother and Corvo. “I like it a lot.”

She returned to her bed, where the ghost had sat back down, and climbed up next to him. She looked out the window at the stars, pointing. “I know there’s a constellation up there called the Tusked Leviathan, I think, and there’s one called Captain at the Helm. I saw them in a book. I don’t remember the other names, though, do you?”

The ghost joined her in looking out the window, a faintly amused smile on his face. “You see a great many things in books,” he said. “I wonder, will you ever get to see any of it in person? I know you’d like that.” He trailed off, though, returning his blank black eyes upward. “I know them by different names,” he said at last. “That one is the Chained Lady,” he says softly. “There’s the Hunting Dogs, and beside them is The Twins.” His finger traced to the right. “Over there is the Hunter, and the Scales, Octant, and and Lyre are a little more to the north.”

“Wow,” Emily said, following his finger reverently. “You know a lot. Tell me some more, mister ghost?”

The ghost blinked, smiling faintly and turning back to the window. His expression was hard to read, given his inky black eyes, but Emily thought he seemed...sad. Sad in the way that she saw some people who talked about their native isle, or old people who talked about when they were young. Nostalgia, that was the word. 

“Well…” He started, reaching to take Emily’s hand in his cold and marble-smooth one, getting her to point at a particular star. “That star, there. The bright one. You see it? It’s the northern tip of the Compass, and it’s always at the northern end of the horizon. If you ever get lost, look for the compass, and it will point you north no matter where you are.”

Emily stared at him in wide-eyed wonder. “That’s so _cool_ ,” she said softly. “I’ll remember that.” She leaned out the window for a moment, short hair blowing in the evening breeze as she stared up at the stars. To think they used to have completely different names for things...and the ghost _knew_ them. Her ghost, she decided. He was officially _her_ ghost. She said so as future Empress.

She returned from the window, crawling into her ghost’s lap. He made a startled noise, but let her do so, awkwardly patting her hair. “What do you want now?” He asked, chuckling.

“Dunno,” she said at first, leaning against his chest and looking up at his pale face, letting her legs kick aimlessly against his. “Tell me a story.”

He snorted almost automatically, but then realized with a start she was serious. “Wait,” he managed. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” Emily insisted. “I bet you know tons that other people don’t.”

Her ghost sighed. “You’re really pushing your luck, princess,” he said dryly, but picked her up with a startled huff of hair at how heavy she was, shifting onto the bed properly and leaning against the pillows. Emily shifted, getting comfortable and leaning her head on his chest.

“Well, let’s see…” He murmured. “I can’t really recall, Emily. Do you still have the tale of the Sword in the Stone?”

Emily blinked. “No,” she said interestedly. “I haven’t heard of that one. Tell it to me!” Maybe she can write it down! That would be amazing.

Her ghost sighed, and settled in a little better. “Fine, fine,” he said. “Let me just remember how it goes.” He took a breath and stared up at the ceiling, and though she couldn’t tell, she thought his eyes went distant again, nostalgic.

“A long time ago, in a kingdom called Cymru, there lived a king named Uther,” her ghost began slowly, his voice a little distant. “King Uther was at constant war with a kingdom called Trevena, whose king was named Gorlais. However one day, the two kings decided to make a truce. Unfortunately, when the rulers of Trevena arrived at King Uther’s castle, Uther saw the queen of Trevena, Ygrayne, and fell madly in love. When he tried to act on this, though, the king and queen fled back to their kingdom, abandoning the treaty.”

Emily frowned. “That was rude of Uther,” she said, and her ghost laughed.

“It was,” he said. “And he isn’t finished yet. Angry at being rejected, King Uther waited until the king and queen were at separate castles, and summoned his court magician, Myrddin. ‘Myrddin,’ he said. ‘I want you to transform me into King Gorlois, so I can go to Lady Ygrayne’s side and bed her as if she were my wife.’” He paused to laugh again as Emily made a disgusted face, and continued. “Myrddin agreed, because he could see the future, and he knew that this was supposed to happen -- he turned King Uther into the other king, and himself into a servant, and they rode to the castle the lady was staying at. King Gorlois heard about this, though, and rode out to stop them...but King Uther struck him down.”

“Rude!” Emily interjected. Her ghost laughed, flicking her in the forehead.

“So is interrupting,” he pointed out, and she quieted down. “In any case, the disguised Uther and Myrddin arrived at the castle, and Uther’s crafty plan succeeded. Shortly after this, Uther revealed himself and married Ygrayne. Yes, I know, but the story isn’t about Uther. He dies.” Emily grins, and her ghost grins back. “You see, Ygrayne eventually gives birth to Uther’s son -- and because Mryddin helped Uther wed Ygrayne, Myrddin took the son away, giving him to a knight named Antor who lived far out in the country to raise as his own.” Her ghost shifted, leaning in. “And here’s where the story _actually_ begins. Soon after Myrddin did that, Uther was killed in battle, and of course the kingdom fell into chaos. However, one day, Myrddin called all the lords and ladies into the capital, and to the city’s square. They spoke among themselves, wondering what was going on, when Myrddin appeared. With a wave of his hand, a huge stone appeared right in the center of the square -- with a shining sword stuck right in its center. The stone had words carved on it, too: _‘Whoever pulls the sword from the stone shall be the rightful king.’_ ”

“Oh!” Emily said excitedly. “Is Uther’s son going to pull the sword out? I bet he is.”

Her ghost pouted. “Well, _obviously_ ,” he told her. “But you’re ruining the fun of it. Don’t you know how to listen to a story?”

“Sorry,” Emily said, then stifled a yawn, snuggling up to her ghost. “M’gonna close my eyes for a bit, ‘kay?” She murmured. “Then you can tell me about the rightful king...”

Her eyes flickered shut and her hand curled into her ghost’s leather jacket, and she was soon fast asleep.

She woke the next morning to Callista bringing her breakfast, and telling her over their sausage and potatoes that Corvo was back, and had brought with him Anton Sokolov. In the excitement of the day’s events, Emily forgot all about her ghostly friend.

Though despite that, the childishly drawn sketch of a whale still remained pinned to her wall, and the next night, she found herself looking for the compass in the stars, smiling to herself.

She was glad she’d found a friend, at least for a little while. Something to take her mind off things. She hoped she’d made him less lonely, too, the ghost with black eyes. 

Maybe he’d visit again.


End file.
